“It may be a cycle.”
I noticed the same thing. If I look at the expacs we have:
- Burning Crusade: Well received but in hindsight that may be an anomaly. We had been stuck with Vanilla only for SOO many years and we were so hungry for new content that anything would have been great.
- WOLK: Often called out as one of, if not THE best expac. I know that I and my guild at the time sure enjoyed it.
- Cata: One of the contenders for the worst expac ever, at least it is if we judge by discussions at the time and even now (though in all honesty I really enjoyed both the underwater zone and underground zones…very creative I thought)
- MOP: Many saw this as a redemption for Cata and is now seen very positively. I admit that I was quite skeptical and thought that the whole “Kung Fu Panda” thing was going to be too cutesy by half but I actually quite enjoyed it. It was also, I felt, where LFR was best implimentd.
- WOD: Oh boy was that one a mess. Very much not liked and often called out as one of, if not the worst expac ever. While nothing official has ever been said I strongly suspect that Blizz recognized that they had a dog on their hands and cut the expac short to focus on…
- Legion: Another one that is thought of pretty fondly I think. The artifacts worked out well and I really liked the cool abilities and buffs that they granted. It made grinding meaningful at least for the majority of the expac. The Legos were good but the RNG factor was terrible and there were some other issues with this expac (very alt unfriendly)
- BFA: Well reading this forum for a moment (and judging by my friends list) this has not been a very successful. I know that personally I only log in for raid nights and while I used to do that during the content drought at the end of earlier expacs, I was doing it for BFA before 8.1 was released and have been since 8.1 (I have even started skipping raid nights). So for me, at least, this has not been an engaging expac (for a lot of reasons).
So we do seem to be in a cycle. If we don’t cont burning crusade which, as I said, may be an anomaly we seem to alternate between good to great expacs and less successful ones. Maybe this intentional. Perhaps resource is being devoted to other projects and then it is focused on WOW only every other expac, or there are A and B team development groups, or it may be a simple coincidence. It does feel a bit like a pattern. Kind of reminds me of Star Trek movies that seem to alternate between good and bad.
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